


cold black cloud is comin' around

by narratria



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, How Do I Tag, Literal Sleeping Together, Missing Scene, this fic is only enjoyable if you remember every season clearly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24157495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narratria/pseuds/narratria
Summary: "Is this what you do all the time with Scott? Just, saving people after class period?"“Usually we don’t wait until after class period, but yeah.”He peeks his head to see her eyes are closed now. He assumes she’s gone ahead when they don’t say anything for a while. But it comes, and it doesn’t truly sink until he’s staring right at the blinding light of what is thankfuckingfully not the full moon.“I think I want to save people too.”--or: countless times stiles and lydia had sleepovers and the two times they didn't.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Kudos: 43





	cold black cloud is comin' around

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Knocking on Heaven's Door" by Raign.
> 
> Unbeta'd but special thanks to my friend who first got a hold of this hot trash. 
> 
> One scene is inspired by another fic. Another scene came straight out of a dream I've been having for 3 straight days. One line is from another iconic slowburn ship.
> 
> Can you guess the easter eggs?

**between 2x12 & 3x01.**

They're sitting against the bedrest surrounded by books and physical copies of different bestiary versions when she sighs for the 7th time. It's too loud he couldn't help but keep count now. Otherwise, he's going to reread the opening sentence of that damn fifth paragraph he's been going over for the past 20 minutes.

But it follows a yawn, and that earns a concerned look from Stiles. She slouches (yeah, he's shocked too, that Lydia Martin slouches in position) and sinks back into the warm bed. ( ~~she doesn’t admit she's gotten used to it by now, let alone the comfortable surge of feeling she gets with the person owning this bed haha no~~.)

“You sure you still want to continue? It's pretty late."

“What? What time is it?"

He reaches for his phone to turn it on. "A little over one."

She drops her arms to her sides and widens her eyes before it rolls to the back of her head. Fatigued, he supposes.

“M'sleepy," she yawns as she picks her phone up from the nightstand across his bed and taps on Messages. "Mom said she was out on a date—”

She scrolls past the new ones. "Well. It looks like she's not mad at me anymore. Although. I said I was at Allison's."

"Uh, well you can stay here if you want. Or, any time, really. Now that I think about it, you’d probably be hosting another Friday night house party but. You know. I'm used to sleeping on the floor."

She considers debating with him but remembers that the task has a requirement of opening her mouth. She settles with mumbling a quiet _okay_ and her eyes droop so easily.

She doesn't do her night skincare routine, nor asks Stiles for an extra change of clothes because that would just be ~~quite nice actually~~ weird. She pulls the comforter over herself, the piles of paper managing to stay on the bed.

“Stiles?"

“Hm?”

“Lose the buzzcut. Grow your hair out, jesus.” They both chuckle.

Lydia’s voice gets softer, less raspy, sweeter. “Is this what you do all the time with Scott? Just, saving people after class period?”

“Usually we don’t wait until _after_ class period, but yeah.”

He peeks his head to see her eyes are closed now. He assumes she’s gone ahead when they don’t say anything for a while. But it comes, and it doesn’t truly sink until he’s staring right at the blinding light of the thankfuckingfully not the full moon.

“I think I want to save people too.”

**\--**

"Stiles."

"Yep?”

"Just take one corner of the bed."

**\--**

**3x14.**

By the time Lydia flops down, she gapes at her boots until Stiles notices the silence and turns around. He approaches and kneels in front of her. She's still not reacting. He holds his hand out for her shoes and looks up. _Can I?_

She holds his gaze for a few seconds, holds it close, puts it right below her eyelashes. They’re all silent communication and mutual understanding and old-married-couple banter. This friendship dynamic they upgraded to is… weird. She doesn’t know how to describe it, nor can she put it anywhere, really.

He understands that her toleration usually means yes, but he repeats anyway.

“Lydia?"

And then it looks like he tugged a string judging by how her eyes blink for a fraction of a second and softly goes, "Yeah."

Stiles removes her boots and sets them aside, below the dresser. He goes back to say something again when he catches sight of faint red marks at the back of her right ankle. Pauses. Prada’s usually harmless and that it only caused him to bite her ankle because of the ‘three’s a pattern’ notion a couple months ago when they were facing Jennifer. He stomached the hundreds of birds whooping past the Beacon Hills High School classroom windows and pecked the death out of kids’ hairs, heads, and faces, and their own, and he could barely take the image of a deer’s head through a windshield and the consequent frightened look on Lydia’s face, but it’s much more gruesome for it to be your own pet turning against you. _Wow_ , he remarks sarcastically to absolutely no one but his own head.

“Does it still hurt?”

“No. No it’s just—it’s not this,” Lydia huffs, flattens out her skirt, removes the other boot, and puts the pair aside to sit on the corner of the bed. Stiles nod empathically. They catch each other’s sight again, and this time Lydia purses her lips.

“I know earlier at the beartrap wasn’t the only time you saved me,” she whispers. She decides to continue even though she knows how he’s going to take it. “…Peter told me.”

“ _Peter?_ Did he try to--?”

“No!” She’s learned how to play this by now. “You know I wouldn’t have let him. The point is… I’m thanking you, Stiles." _Pause_. "Also, do you feel better?”

“What?”

“How are you holding up?” She drags a Cosmopolitan magazine under her lamp and waves the front page to his face before tapping her index finger on the black bolded text at the side.

He squints for a second. “Huh. Apparently Miranda Lambert says, ‘Feel The Love’. Also, I could read the seal on my dad’s car side mirror. I’m better, Lydia.”

She replaces what she picked up with another 2016 Cosmo issue from the third drawer. “Yeah, but it seemed serious earlier. Try this.”

“ ’Do What You Love’. Liza… who? And it’s a temporary thing, trust me.”

“Liza Soberano. Filipino actress. Foreign blood,” Lydia sighed half-defeatedly. “I’m just testing out a theory. Come on, last one. Humor me.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at her. She seems entirely too distracted about this; probably forgot about the subject earlier. Or diverted. Fine. “ ’Find Your The One’. Where can you even buy Korean versions of sensationalized print?”

_Breakthrough_. “You recognized it’s Korean,” Lydia smiled. “Great. Nothing to worry about.”

Suppose it won’t hurt to tease a little more. “So, you were worrying about me?” Stiles’ grins wider. He expects her to rebut or counterattack.

“I still am.”

Oh. He opens his mouth, less likely in retaliation, more in filling the silence that went over their heads. “Thanks. And, you’re welcome. I mean for the—thank you, earlier. Not that I’m not thanking you for _this_ thank you but since you thanked me earlier then you thanked me now I thought you might be confused—”

“Stop talking.”

“Right.” Oh, how dare he look at her like she hung the fucking stars. (And how dare she come out into the night to help him hang them.)

“Right-o, haha. I-I should be going—”

“Stay.”

He turns his head around so fast he almost gets whiplash. “You. You want _me_ , to stay?”

“Mm-hm.” Her cheeks are puffed out and a tad pinkish. She swears it’s the heater in the bedroom. She doesn’t remind herself that she just asked that, to keep being inside her bedroom. Her _actually asking him for that_. Welp. Too late. I mean, don’t they usually do this? It’s very normal for friends. She’d totally ask Scott to stay the night too. _Very_ normal.

Stiles’ head ducks out like a toy bird in a clock striking the next hour. “Are you doped up?”

“Excuse me?”

“No, I mean like. God this is torture de ja vu,” he blurts and Lydia’s eyebrows shoot up. “Because the last time this happened you were on pain meds and you actually wanted… another guy, to stay.”

“This has happened before?” Lydia’s gears are turning inside her head. “Ohh. _Jackson_. Look, I’m definitely sober and still want you to stay. Are you going to or not?”

Right. He’s pulling up his phone from his jean pockets and presses call on Dad. “If it’s okay with your mom.”

**\--**

**between 3x24 and 4x01.**

She settles between Stiles’ pillows.

She focuses her breathing onto other matters. Like Stiles’ usual pale face rather than the sickly tone. On Mister Argent’s words that evades you as a suspect and redirects you as a witness.

“Like what?"

"Like, my favorite isn't red anymore. I just...kept seeing red everywhere." She doesn't look up and keeps holding on to his forearm. He caresses her cheek, "Is there a new one?" That comment seems like it eased her. She scrunches her nose.

"It's not a good choice." He looks pointedly at her, _oh come on_.

"It's brown, and not the color of—" He's already chuckling before she could finish her sentence, but she joins him. "No, like uh, like." She meets his gaze and wets her lower lip.

"Like whiskey. Like, your eyes."

They break out into an agreement of _that's so cheesy_ but the laughter dies down and she swallows.

"You know Scott told me a secret." He raises his eyebrows.

"It's also okay to not be your own anchor. If for a while, you hold onto somebody or the thought of somebody, you're going to be okay." He hopes he can strongly believe her just as strongly as how he’s tugging at the hem of her shirt. His chest tightens, feeling the ground underneath sink and wobble. He thinks. _Lydia._

“You didn’t kill her, Stiles.”

**\--**

**4x06.**

Meredith's dead.

He embraces her at 9:07 PM.

It sinks in at 9:08 PM.

She lets go at 9:21.

She decides she's going to keep these feelings in a box and put a password-ridden safe over it, figuring out how she will continue looking at him and know that he won't hold her like this anymore.

The moon shines an orange tint, all mockery on display.

She fools herself, shutting off his bedroom windows to lie back down and run her fingers through his hair.

If this benefactor case hasn’t drained her yet, she would hear its laughter at her irony.

**\--**

**5x05.**

This time he didn't enter through the door.

The rapping at his window is fast but somehow Lydia knew it was hesitant. She closes her book and turns to unlock and slide the window up.

He's making it one leg at a time, agonizingly slow, and it hits her immediately.

"Hey," he swallows, "sorry, I—" he looks down on himself, on the gush of red imprinted on his flannel, on the red trickling down his limbs, on the red all over the wrench. He's pretty sure he left this in the windshield of his jeep, so _why is he carrying it here_. He looks frightened at the hesitation and it seems like he got crushed by the window bricks because he starts retreating back to the window, "SorrysorryI'm staining your carpet from the—"

"—rain. Did you leave Roscoe behind? Why did you walk out in the rain?" She reaches out for nothing in particular, and she's. She's. Why is she not addressing the elephant in the room?

She doesn't understand what happened, but this isn't about her. She wraps a hand around the small on his back and pulls him towards the beanbags and he pulls a face like he sees her grow two heads or snakes for hair. "Those needed cleaning anyway. Sit down." It's a command and not a request but her voice drops so softly, like a wine glass filled to the brim, ringing and ready to explode.

She sits in front of him, not caring that her wedges are roughed up at the heel or her ankle just hurts a little for being curved a little to the left more than necessary. She closes her eyes and takes a sharp, deep breath and he's still shaking.

She sees him and for the first time, all the emotion floods to her face. She clasps both hands to his, trying to squeeze the coldness out as if she can. She tries anyway. "I'm here."

And there it is. The words he's always wanted to hear. Not the nonchalance and apathy coming from Malia's inflection in her tone, and not the fearful 2 steps Scott took backwards. The _counterbalance_.

She's careful. They both know she's holding him like he hasn't put back the pin of whatever grenade Stiles has thrown. She swallows the notion that she'll provide the bomb for him anyway. He hates the fragility. She hates the vulnerability. But Lydia would rather dance with him, with this—this circular and painful and offbeat rhythm, like a fucked-up foxtrot, just for him to stop shivering beneath her like this. She slides up her palms over his forearm and it’s the same temperature as the rest of his body and she can only think of failing this metaphorical dance competition if it means she can keep him up just like she did in the winter classroom the Nogitsune had put them in.

The Nogitsune.

The fleeting thought passes her by, that maybe that _thing_ left a permanent bruise on him, that The Divine Move wasn't as completely lethal nor was a victory at all because. Because in the end, with all of Stiles' human fragments and sarcasm glory, the Void won.

He tells her a story in utters and gasps and groans. It doesn't make sense in some places and he starts over because he left a detail and then restarts again since he first told it in the middle, but she quietly pieces it together. 

Logic flies out the window. It's so uncharacteristic of Lydia, but it's as if she has gained Scott's ability to take others' pain because even if she knows it's self-defense and good riddance of combat against death threats, all that registers is that Stiles killed Donovan. She wants to say, wants— _as long as you've alive_ —or, _i would've traded anything_ —but it's so wrong and _pathetic_ that she settles with another response instead. She doesn't mean to blurt out three.

One. "You do realize that you saved my life, right?" She tries again. Rational. Logical.

Two. "Chinese principles abide by the traditional blood for blood." Maybe not the best.

Three. "I—I would've done the same."

Lydia patiently directs him to her shower, careful not to alert her mother in the living room, and careful not to alert Stiles that her mother is actually in the living room. She guides him, one hand placed on his shivering back, and another below his arms to keep him steady. Slightly limping battled with shushed reassurances. It’s when she hears the water running that she finally leans against the bathroom wall and thinks over the action, still watching over.

Okay. She admits that it's better for this boy to stop putting her on a pedestal, but she regrets her absolute decisiveness because she'd break exactly 37 bones just for him to stand behind her again and talk about the Star Wars' order of chronological vs year of release or how dumb the Fibonacci sequence actually is, that they can banter about, or annoying him about his real name and not—this. _Anything but this._

**\--**

**5x16.**

She's been here all night, but she just now notices: Stiles got a new beanbag. It doesn’t appear to be more expensive and saturated as hers, and yet he's cushioning it ever so gracefully.

By Lydia's request, Natalie agreed to have the kids in the McCall house. The adults are all taking turns to check on their door every 2 hours. Stiles, Scott, and Lydia are all in Scott's room, but the werewolf is the first to pass out. He tried staying awake all night either way, but the fatigue washed over as soon as he confirmed everyone was safe. So, he's lightly snoring on the computer desk. Clearly this has been done before.

She turns back to Stiles. His eyes are glazed over the window. It's the only thing providing the light, casting shadows on his upturned nose. She's been staring too closely she doesn't see his mouth move.

"Why are you still up?" he mutters. It's a rhetorical question, and it's small talk. He doesn't do either of those things.

She purses her lips and speaks anyway; it's better than lying down and focusing her attention on the searing sensation on the literal hole on the side of her head. Then again, it’s not pain. "I don't know. You have your pillow. Why can't _you_?"

Stiles' chest is too heavy and all that comes out is a strained huff. He approaches the bed and lifts her left arm to sit on the small space. Presses his face closer. “I’m sorry, come again?”

Oh God. The phantom pain comes back at the side of the hole and she feels a vibration pass her fingertips. She adjusts her voice a little louder. “Stiles—”

Then she pauses. He’s laughing. “I’m kidding! Melissa said it’s temporary. For now, it’s just low frequencies I can’t hear.”

“That’s not funny,” she pouts. Adorable. “I still hurt you. Because of my screams I could’ve busted your eardrum.”

“And you almost did!” That earns a look of false-annoyance and…gratitude? Then that means she knows he’s purposefully being weird to carry the burden on her chest. His normal-weird. “Sorry.” His grin is still forming at his lips, but the sincerity in his voice is clear. She stays unmoving, except for the thumb brushing across his cheek.

“All that matters is that you didn’t. Looks like you’re going to deal with me and my sharper-than-wolves super hearing for much longer,” he utters between choked out giggles. Yeah. She’d like that very much.

“Speaking of. I heard you concocted that rescue mission. I must’ve known based on how idiotic and compulsive it was. I mean, you guys were surrounded by buckets and buckets of mountain ash and wolfsbane.”

“And the stench of Theo,” he retorts, making a face for a split-second before reverting to his serious persona. “Hey. We weren’t going to let you get away that easily. You still owe Scott one night of The Notebook, remember?”

Nod. “Besides. You didn’t leave me behind in the tunnels. Why in hell am I going to do that to you?”

She puts up a finger in retaliation, but he grabs it and takes the window of opportunity to lean closer.

“No way. No,” he breathes. “Lydia, you know I would never—”

Stiles' startled hands hover mid-air, then slowly finds a home on her waist and lower back as he hugs back. She buries her head on the crook of his neck. The warm and cold mix and bring them closer, maybe becoming up to par with the whoosh from the opened window. 

They eventually part; she’s the first to let go. “I also—,” Lydia starts. Her facial features sink, and he wipes her first tear.

“You’re too important to me.”

**\--**

**6x10.**

Knock knock.

"Yeah, I'm going to sleep soon. I swear."

...knock knock.

"Dad, I already told you--"

Lydia looks up at the opened door.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Tonight feels like a familiar sting but with a gentler push of the needle. Like the injection is an antidote, not poison. It also feels unfamiliar, like she's stopping by a territory she's observed from a distance countless times except now she's crossed.

"Noah let me in." He's still leaning by the doorframe. "He says he's out for a midnight shift, but I think he's just doing another round of patrol so he could check on everyone."

She's so, so relieved. "M'sorry. I-I couldn't sleep." She has been awake, sitting on her bed waiting for nothing but time to pass. She's mostly not sorry, just for interrupting him in his sleep, except she knows that--

"Me neither. Uh, come in."

"How come your mom let you go out at this hour?"

"As long as she’d drive me to wherever. And after Eichen, she finds it hard to say no to me now."

He figures there's something else but they both know they'll talk about it eventually.

"How is everyone?"

"Um." She tries to use euphemism, but it's Stiles, so. "Could be worse. Malia and Chris are at Scott's house now. The puppy pack are all at Mason's."

"Puppy pack?"

"Liam, Hayden, Corey, Mason. They're basically all of our adopted kids now." They both laugh.

"I think everybody's a little less lonely now."

They shift in the bed, Lydia in an orange loose shirt with one sleeve hanging off her shoulder and cycling shorts and Stiles with a blue shirt and black jogging pants. 

"Stiles?"

"Hm?"

"I know you said I didn't have to...say it back—”

"Lydia—”

"But I want to say it."

Okay.

She's tapping his knee in a rhythmical habit. He waits.

"I'm in love with you, Stiles Stilinski."

Her head drops. When she looks up again, her tears are staining their intertwined hands. "I'm sorry I took so long; I was scared. It was so different from Jackson, from Aiden. So I ran away. You looked so happy with Malia, of course I couldn't do that to the both of you. You're my friends. I thought I could try to hide by forcing myself with what I had with Jordan."

"It did help. With our packmates not detecting it. Either that or they just...never said anything."

She breaks her gaze. "But it never felt the same."

He traces circles on her palm. "Did you know I first had a crush on you on the second day of third grade?" Lydia scrunches her eyebrows, smiles, and nods no.

"It was third period, and... you defended those two girls because Chandler and Bryan wouldn't stand down, and nobody else stood up for them. I didn't really know what the situation was, and I think neither did you. All you did was reprimand them. You were scared, but that didn't stop you at all. That Lydia Martin reminds me of you now."

"I always thought I wasn't enough. I mean...I wanted _all of you_ , Lydia Martin,” His voice is the clearest it’s ever been in the deadest night. "I still do. And all I can give back is, this. _Me_." He points to his body. It's her turn to shake her head.

"What are you talking about?" Lydia places Stiles' hand over her heart. She's hesitant to be bringing another person up, but. "My last was...a werewolf boyfriend who could hear heartbeats easily. But do you hear that? It's never been this fast."

She reaches up to wipe the tear on his cheek, not removing their other hand.

"Stiles. You gave me more." Iloveyouiloveyouilove— “All you’ve ever done was to protect me. Way before I even batted my sight at you. Winter Formal. Finding me in the woods. Staying at the hospital. The beartrap. Eichen House, _thrice_. Believing that we can remember you. I'm sorry. I guess...even _Lydia Martin_ could be so dense. I need you to know, that I'm here now. And I hope that's okay."

Until now, when she has wrapped her head and her heart and soul and body around it, she doesn’t understand. How he could still serve and worship her, except everything's changed. Much, much more different. With all his being and with all her flaws, they can finally stop tiptoeing around this thin red string tethering them to hell and back, and just… _stay_. Through the nights.

Lydia can only muster out, "Can I kiss you?"

" _Please_."

And he cups her face ever so sweetly. Lydia’s part takes in throwing her arms over his shoulders, being pulled down the bed and under him, before taking matters on to her own hands.

See: rather, taking _Stiles_ under her hands.

He catches her earlobes in his teeth and bites lightly, placing her even more against him and makes them both release small gasps. It’s like ice water being doused on both their bodies, strikingly burning and freezing in places. Lydia hides her moans by riling her tongue along his collarbone, placing what would later look like a deep maroon mark. Between parted lips, he’s turned over, back pressing the mattress. If it were another person in the room, they'd look away.

She pulls away for a moment, sitting on top of his legs.

He asks, “Do you want to do this?”

She nods, and for the first time in a while, her smile reaches her eyes. She pulls his shirt over his head slowly, trying not to break eye contact. They do the same when he holds her waist and tugs on the blouse. She holds her arms up and he takes it off.

It was always going to be Stiles and Lydia. They kiss relentlessly and gently and with everything intangible they can offer, finding hands to intertwine in one silent explosion.

Bonus:

The next morning, his dad asks again.

"So, is there anything there?"

Finally, he can say, "Yeah. There is."

**\--**

**[+1] 3x24.**

She settles between her own pillows.

Aiden’s blood.

Allison’s breaths.

Stiles’ cold arms.

**\--**

**[+2]** **between 4x12 and 5x01.**

"He's upstairs, studying with Malia. I could get him for y--"

"No, it's okay. Um. I just checked in and was gonna leave anyway."

"You sure?"

"Yes, thank you. Good night, Sheriff."

“Good night, Lydia.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi first fic, meet ghostreaders! You can call me April.
> 
> There are only three things you need to know about me in AO3: 1) started writing when I was in 4th grade but completely lost my voice and myself for years, 2) wrote this out of raw obsession of revisiting my love for TW and Stydia and indulge in my compulsive habits, and 3) my writing process is less shower-thoughts and more midnight-to-5-am-living-room-performing-and-improvising-the-dialogue-to-the-air-and-recording-them.
> 
> Cut line: "No, let me take care of you."
> 
> [Record: 15 days, 4k words. If I'm taking Creative Writing in college, I need to set a goal that is less than a week, 62k!]


End file.
